The NBA isn’t planning to paint up the courts with Black Lives Matter next season; been there, done that. What the league with a bad reputation for drug abuse is planning to do is to stop testing players for marijuana. Deadspin’s Donovan Dooley is ecstatic over this news and urges players to smoke it up because it could help take the game higher.
Ben Dowsett, who writes on the NBA, is Dooley’s source on this story. He claims this decision will protect players from COVID because it will limit unnecessary contacts.
This is just one more example of the Left lowering commonsense standards. Marijuana is on the NBA’s banned substance list, but it did not test players in the Florida bubble this past season. Dowsett says the NBA and players union agreed to not do testing during the upcoming 2020-2021 season. NBA players basically now have an open door to use drugs and engage in social justice and political activism with reckless abandon.
Dooley writes “it seems that we are inching closer to the league permanently getting rid of marijuana testing. The drug is already legal in nine of the states and districts that the NBA plays in and has been proven to provide healing effects for the body as well as helping with anxiety.”
This could set a precedent opening the way for other leagues to stop testing athletes for marijuana. Dooley also says the legalization of weed is already growing exponentially and …
“The ramifications of the NBA’s decision could also help to reverse negative stereotypes created during the war on drugs that adversely and disproportionately affected young men of color. After a summer where the NBA was at the forefront of racial justice, this decision to stop marijuana testing could be crucial in repairing the detrimental impact that coincides with punishing people for this drug.
The "National Basketball Drug Association" season begins Dec. 22 without restricting games to a bubble environment as it did in Florida this past season. The weak-kneed, permissive league had already loosened its marijuana policies, allowing players to test positive three times before issuing suspensions.
So the NBA is telling its marijuana users to have at it, you won’t get tested, you won’t get suspended. Smoke to your hearts content. Who’s going to protect people from them though? Marijuana was a banned substance for a reason, though more and more states are foolishly legalizing this addictive drug. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reports:
“Marijuana may indeed be harmful. There is a link between long-term marijuana use and increased rates of schizophrenia, depression and anxiety. Marijuana also increases a person's heart rate for up to three hours after use, putting users at risk for heart attack during that period.”
Additionally, marijuana can lead to addiction, and studies link it to suicide planning and psychotic episodes. It can be detrimental to athletic performance, with adverse affects on timing, movement and coordination.
Here’s a scarier aspect of weed use for motorists who may encounter NBA marijuana users driving – or attempting to drive – down the roads:
“People who drive under the influence of marijuana can experience dangerous effects: slower reactions, lane weaving, decreased coordination, and difficulty reacting to signals and sounds on the road.”
Drug use in the NBA has been a huge problem for many years, as this Washington Post story demonstrates. A 2017 story by William McKeon, of The Sportster, revealed how drugs destroy NBA careers, and this video shows former NBA players rejoicing over their marijuana use as they display drugs on a table. Matt Barnes appears in the photo above smoking weed.
Dooley is dead wrong about weed taking the NBA game higher. Increased marijuana use damages its players and confirms public perception that it has a major drug problem.
